Reginald Walter Macan, Herodotus, The Seventh, Eighth, & Ninth Books with Introduction and Commentary

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ἐκ τῆς Δωρίδος ἐς τὴν Φωκίδα: the exact frontier between Doris and Phokis is not very clearly marked by any actual boundary; the list of townships destroyed, in c. 33 infra, seems to show that K. O. Mueller, l.c. supr., extended the ποδεών too far in taking it down so as to include Lilaia, though that place, oddly enough, is not included in the list. But Hdt.'s topography of Phokis is not quite all that it might have been (die Angaben stimmen nicht zur Lokalitat, Stein).

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οἳ μέν: the corresponding term is found in οἱ δὲ πλεῦνες, infra. The first term may perhaps be referred to the fighting men, and the second, the majority, to the non-coinbatants.

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τὰ ἄκρα τοῦ Παρνησοῦ need not necessarily be restricted to just the two famous topmost peaks, Lykorea and Tithorea, which earned Parnassos the title of “biceps:” Ovid, Metam. 2. 221; cp. 1. 316 “Mons ibi verticibus petit arduus astra duobus, Nomine Parnassus”; Lucan, Phars. 5. 72 “Parnassus gemino petit aethera colle”. The mountain has many ἄκρα, like every other large range or system: ἄκρα (τά) is used by Hdt. for high ground, as in 6. 100 τὰ ἄκρα τῆς Εὐβοίης: and the very next sentence seems to show that Hdt. himself thought of Parnassos as having only one κορυφή, though it might have many ἄκρα. But cp. next note. Pausanias 10. 32. 2 employs the phrase τὰ ἄκρα τοῦ Παρνασοῦ.

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τοῦ Παρνησοῦ ἡ κορυφή: Parnassos is a mountain with twin peaks, of which Tithorea was only one; cp. previous note. Hdt. treats Tithorea here as the sole summit. In c. 39 infra he names another κορυφή Hyampeia, but that is in a story from another (a Delphian) source; and moreover the word κορυφή there may be used simply for a peak, cp. c. 37—not as here obviously for the absolute summit. This sentence, however, comes in curiously, and has somewhat the air of an insertion, from the author's own hand, for (i.) it postpones the correlative to οἳ μέν above, and (ii.) it contains a slight correction of the foregoing statement, as it shows the Phokian minority gone up not to τὰ ἄκρα generally but to ἡ κορυφή, that is to Tithorea. Ulrichs (l.c. infra) suggests that the inhabitants of Neon retired to a large cave, well supplied with water, and impregnable, which lies behind Velitza.

κατὰ Νέωνα ... Τιθορέα: Bursian, Geogr, von Griechenl. i. (1862) 166, proves that there was in later times a township named Τιθόρρα (inscripp.) or Τιθόρα (inscripp. and Plutarch, Sulla 15), or (in the MSS. generally) Τιθορέα, or (in Steph. B. erroneously) Τιθοραία, and asserts that Tithora occupied the site of the older city Neon. Extensive remains near the modern village of Velitza attest the site of Tithora, beyond doubt. Cp. Ulrichs, ‘Topographie und Inschriften von Tithora,’ Rhein. M. N.F. 2. 544 ff. (1843), but Ulrichs denies the absolute identity of the sites of the old Neon and the new Tithora, and identifies Neon with a site at Palea-Fiva some five miles north of Velitza (Tithora). The name of Neon, but not that of Tithora, occurs in the list of the twenty-two members of the Phokian League given by Pausanias 10. 3. 2. His remarks on the present passage may be quoted in full: 10. 32. 5 “διάφορα ἐς τὸ ὄνομα οἶδα τῆς πόλεως Ἡροδότῳ τε είρημἐνα ἐν ἐπιστρατείᾳ τοῦ Μήδου καὶ Βακίδι ἐν χρησμοῖς. Βάκις μέν γε Τιθορέας τοὺς ἐνθάδε έκάλεσεν ἀνθρώπους: Ἡροδότου δὲ ὁ ἐς αὐτοὺς λόγος ἐπιόντος φησὶ τοῦ βαρβάρου τους ένταῦθα οἰκοῦντας ἀναφυγεῖν ἐς τὴν κορυφήν, ὄνομα δὲ Νεῶνα μὲν τῇ πόλει, Τιθορέαν δὲ εἶναι τοῦ Παρνασοῦ τῇ ἄκρᾳ. ἔοικεν οὖν ἀνὰ χρόνον πρῶτα μὲν δὴ τῇ ἁπάσῃ χώρᾳ, μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα, ἐπειδὴ ἀνῳκίσθησαν ἀπὸ τῶν κωμῶν, ἐκνικῆσαι καὶ ἐπὶ τῇ πόλει Τιθορέαν μηδὲ ἔτι Νεῶνα ὀνομάζεσθαι. Τιθορέᾳ δὲ οἱ ἐπιχώριοι τεθῆναί φασιν ἀπὸ Τιθορέας νύμφης, οἶαι τὸ ἀρχαῖον λόγῳ τῷ ποιητῶν ἐφύοντο ἀπό τε ἄλλων δένδρων καὶ μάλιστα ἀπὸ τῶν δρυῶν”. (But what has Tithorea to do with trees?) Grasberger, Gr. Ortsnamen, attempts to connect Τιθοραία (sic), ‘name of one of the heights of Parnassos,’ with τιτθός a ‘pap.’ The name Τιθόρα has a more archaic appearance than Νεών (sic ap. Pausan.), and its later use was perhaps a revival, although applied to a fresh site.

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ἀνηνείκαντο: sc. τὰ ἑαυτῶν: cp. c. 36 infra; 3. 148 ἀνενεικάμενος τὰ ἔχων ἐξεχώρησε makes the meaning clear.

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Ὀζόλας Λοκρούς: Hdt. distinguishes from the Ὀπούντιοι Λοκροί: cp. 7. 203, c. 1 supra. They are the Western Lokrians in the peninsula, a primitive, not to say barbarous, folk even in the days of Thucydides (1. 5. 3), but useful allies withal on occasion (3. 95. 3). The ‘Epizephyrian’ Lokri are also mentioned by Hdt. 6. 23. Pausanias 10. 38 gives five different explanations of the name Ozolai, and Strabo 427 adds a sixth. Five of these connect the name with one bad smell or another (ὄζειν); one traces it to ὄζος, a branch, shoot, but with a fanciful legend attached. The latter appears the better derivation, in the sense that these were the Branch-Lokri, from the parent stem in Opûs: but need either alternative be more than a Volksetymologie?

Ἄμφισσαν: cp. c. 36 infra. No doubt the chief city of the Ozolian Lokri, situate at the inner edge of the ‘Krisaian plain,’ on the main route from Delphi to Thermopylai. The Amphissaians were not always on good terms with the Phokians; cp. Thuc. 3. 101. 2. Amphissa was denounced for sacrilege by Aischines in 340 B. C., and destroyed by Philip two years later (cp. J. B. Bury, Hist. of Greece, ii. 314 ff.), but subsequently restored, as its coinage attests (cp. Head, Hist. Num. 286).

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τοῦ Κρισαίου πεδίου: neither Krisa, nor its port Kirrha, were in existence when Hdt. wrote; but neither here, nor elsewhere, has he taken occasion to refer to the so-called ἱερὸς πόλεμος which led to their destruction; cp. note to c. 29 supra. The old name must have clung to the fertile landscape, as it certainly clung to the bay, round which the landscape lies; cp. Thuc. 1. 107. 3, 2. 69. 1, etc.

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οὕτω: sc. ὥστε τὴν χώρην πᾶσαν ἐπιδραμεῖν.

ὁκόσα δὲ ἐπέσχον: cp. c. 35 infra ὅσα δὲ καὶ οὗτοι ἐπέσχον τῆς Φωκίδος, πάντα ἐσιναμωρεον. Whatever places they touched, reached, overspread, they devastated. Cp. 1. 104 οἱ δὲ Σκύθαι τὴν Ἀσίην πᾶσαν ἔπεσχον. It is an abstract synonym for the more graphic and concrete ἐπέδραμον.